Socialist Action /February 2002
Argentine Left Debates Strategy as Mass
Protests Continue
By GERRY FOLEY
The social explosion that blew away Argentina's neoliberal government
in December is obviously continuing and deepening. On Feb. 1, there were
again massive demonstrations throughout the country.
The new president, the populist Eduardo Duhalde, is trying to pursue
the same objectives as the ousted government-though with demagogic garnishes.
Duhalde is saying, for example, that if he were not president, he would
be in the street with the angry crowds. His tactic is to claim that his
heart is with the people but his mind tells him he has to do what the banks
and the imperialists demand.
This, however, is not a new act in Argentina. And it does not seem playing
to a receptive audience any more.
One of the most popular slogans of the demonstrations against the Duhalde
government-which are continuing on a daily basis-is "Que se vayan todos,"
("They've all got to go," meaning all of the bourgeois politicians,
including Duhalde).
A Feb. 4 Reuters dispatch commented: "Argentines point to signs
that violent social unrest could be around the corner amid daily incidents
that shock a nation long proud of its European ancestry, which for years
helped give it one of the highest standard of living in Latin America."
Reuters reflected the racist attitude that used to be common in Argentina,
that the country was really European and not Latin American at all. That
idea has now been exploded, along with the mirage of the "free market"
economy.
Argentina used to be the prime example of populism, which was a general
response in the region to the economic crisis of the 1930s-that is, bourgeois
nationalist demagogues who would oppose imperialist dictates to a limited
extent and offer some social-welfare type concessions to the masses. Now,
the populists in Argentina-the party founded by the populist strongman Juan
Domingo Peron-are being included in the "they've all got to go,"
although the Peronists still control the bureaucratic leaderships of the
trade unions.
Because of the bureaucratic control of the unions and the extent of unemployment,
it has been primarily the neighborhood organizations of the poor and the
unemployed that have been the vanguard of the protests. But under the pressure
of the massive social revolt, the unions have begun to move as well.
Trotskyists urge neighborhood committees
Although the Trotskyist organizations in Argentina are badly divided,
they seem to have a broad agreement in pushing the formation of neighborhood
committees, which are organized like territorial soviets, and in getting
them affiliated on a national basis to form the basis for a workers' government.
In the Jan. 31 issue of Prensa Obrera, the weekly newspaper of Politica
Obrera, the largest of the Trotskyist groups, its main leader, Jorge Altamira,
wrote:
"The decision of the Inter-Neighborhood Assembly on Jan. 20 led
to the setting up of a new political framework for the people's movement.
Five days after that we had the first really national pan-banging march
since the mass uprising of Dec. 19-20. From the north, in Salta, to Neuquen
on the coast, including in the center of Mar del Plata [the country's main
seacoast resort], tens and tens of thousands of people mobilized in response
to the Assembly's call in downtown Buenos Aires.
"Although this went unnoticed by the press, this movement gave rise
to the first people's assemblies in Greater Buenos Aires, and in particular
in La Matanza. This new phenomenon included the 'unity of the pan-bangers
and the pickets,' that began to be talked about in subsequent days. Because
it is clear that the assemblies in the conurban area cannot be anything
else but a fusion of the people in the neighborhoods and the employed workers."
The Jan. 22 issue of Democracia Obrera, the organ of the Argentine section
of the International Workers League (IWL), which used to include the largest
Trotskyist current in Argentina, called for a National Workers and People's
Congress to fight for a "workers and people's government based on the
insurgent masses."
Democracia Obrera reported: "In Neuquen, hundreds of workers, unemployed,
and even small savers are meeting. In La Matanza, leaders of various unions
are pushing for area-wide coordination. In Corboda, university professors,
delegates from Luz y Fuerza [the electricity company], and the UEPC have
issued a statement in the name of the Workers Committee for Coordination
and called for a regional coordinating committee and a national assembly.
"In the capital [Buenos Aires], dozens of neighborhood assemblies
have begun to coordinate their activities, as we saw in the mass assembly
in the Parque Centenario on Sunday, Jan. 20. ... The Bloque Piquetero has
called an Assembly of Picketers for the middle of February.
"The motorcycle couriers of SiMeCa and the heroic working-class
youth that gave its martyrs in the Dec. 20 battle have taken the lead in
the fight for punishing the murderers of all those who fell."
"The conditions and the forces for calling such a congress already
exist! All of the fighting sections of society can already call it, with
one recallable voting delegate for every 100 workers elected in every factory
and enterprise, and including representatives of the urban small businessmen
and producers and of the ruined population of the country-all of the sections
of the population that are fighting."
The "Constituent Assembly" slogan
The IWL has denounced the other Trotskyist groups, especially the PO,
as the largest of them, for calling for a Constituent Assembly, which it
says would amount only to new bourgeois elections, which the bourgeois political
parties are offering as the ultimate alternative.
It is true that a Constituent Assembly was part of the program of the
Bolsheviks at the time of the Russian Revolution, although they disbanded
it later in the name of the workers government based on the soviets. Conditions
in Argentina are very different, however.
It may be that some Argentine Trotskyist groups are holding onto to this
slogan out of ideological conservatism. But it can be used in different
ways. It is not clear what the groups that raise this slogan mean by it.
In Altamira's lead article in the Jan. 31 Prensa Obrera, he suggests
that he is giving the traditional meaning to the slogan, that is, the ultimate
form of bourgeois democracy. But another article in the paper suggests another
interpretation:
"The slogan of the struggle that is looming is 'they've all got
to go,' and 'don't leave a single one.' It is to multiply the people's assemblies
and to fuse them with the fighting picketers.
"It is to reinforce the authority of people's assemblies and the
picketers' assemblies. It is to convert them into a government of the exploited
people.
"A People's Constituent Assembly is needed, called by the mobilized
people, that will take charge of reorganizing the country on new social
and political bases."
Under the conditions of constant and deepening mass mobilizations and
a catastrophic political crisis of the bourgeoisie, the program of the various
Trotskyist groups will obviously be tested rapidly, and they will experiment
with new slogans and organizational formulas.
Some concrete slogans seem to be becoming established, such as repudiating
the national debt, returning the money of depositors, paying back wages
and pensions, creating jobs.
There is no solution for Argentina's economic crisis short of socialism,
despite the claims that are routinely inserted in the capitalist press reporting
that Argentina was an "economic star" in the 1990s.
It was in this period and the preceding decade that the economy of what
had been the most prosperous of the larger countries in Latin America was
undermined. The state companies were privatized, the country was opened
to imperialist banks and exporters, and Argentine manufacturing was destroyed.
"Globalized" Argentina now has jobs for only about half its
working population. The "free market" that created this disaster
has no solution for it.
However, Argentina's past prosperity has left it with probably the biggest
organized working class in Latin America and with the largest revolutionary
workers organizations. That seems to give it the best conditions for a socialist
revolution in the world at the moment.
The next few months will be an historic test that socialists throughout
the world will have to watch very closely. And they will have to be on the
alert to build international solidarity with the working people who are
likely be subjected to violent attacks by a threatened ruling class. Already
30 people are known to have been killed in the Dec. 19-20 confrontations.
Socialist Action /February 2002 |